London Calling (song)
| London Calling | |
|---|---|
| The clash | |
| publication | 7th December 1979 |
| length | 3:18 |
| Genre (s) | New wave |
| Author (s) | Joe Strummer , Mick Jones |
| Label | Columbia Records |
| album | London Calling |
London Calling is the theme song of the music album of the same name by punk band The Clash , released a week later . It is one of the milestones in rock music and pop culture . The play is written by singer Joe Strummer and guitarist Mick Jones , with Guy Stevens as producer . The song title refers to a sentence that began many broadcasts on the BBC World Service radio station and which went down in cultural memory as follows: “ This is London calling. ”
The B-side of the single contains a cover version of the reggae song Armagideon Time by Willie Williams .
History of origin
At the time of the album recordings, The Clash lacked management, the band members sank into debt and the search for a recording studio and music producer was also difficult. The whole of Great Britain was not doing better: Rapidly rising unemployment, cultural and racist conflicts, drug problems. The IRA's “long war” and long strikes that had culminated a year earlier in the Winter of Discontent and new elections (which Margaret Thatcher won) shook the UK. Cultural tensions erupted a year later in the London Brixton Riots of 1981. “We felt we were fighting; we were about to slide down a slope that we clawed our fingernails into. And there was nobody who would help us, ”Strummer described this time.
After they finally found a recording studio with the Wessex Studio and a producer with Guy Stevens , the recordings in August and November 1979 were productive and only a few weeks short.
content
London Calling drafts an end-of-time scenario as the result of real and imagined catastrophes: war, famine, climate collapse, flood and a nuclear accident, embedded in a refrain whose eponymous phrase “ London Calling ” references the coverage of the BBC World Service. Strummer met BBC World Service as a teenager in the mid-1960s when he was visiting his father in Malawi and was surprised to hear a British station there.
The nuclear incident relates to the March 28, 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant . For Strummer and Jones, this incident is said to have triggered the apocalyptic topic. The music magazine Melody Maker said Strummer in 1988: "I read a day nearly ten newspaper reports, called down the possible plagues upon us," and the magazine Uncut : "It was a lot of Cold War -Blödsinn going on, and we knew that London vulnerable was for floods. She (Strummer's fiancée Gaby Salter) suggested that I write about it. "
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The line " London is drowning / And I live by the river " was based on British folklore: "They say that when the Thames overflows, we are all under water," commented Jones, adding that Strummer would not have drowned: At the time, he lived in a high-rise complex with the name - fitting the theme of the song - World End Estates on the Thames in Chelsea .
The song contains further references to the present, such as the line “ see we ain't got no swing, except for the ring of that truncheon thing ” (German: “Look, we lack the swing, except for the sound of the batons”) refers to the UK police. Reference is also made to music and subculture, on the one hand “the lying Beatlemania bit the grass” and was replaced by the wedding of punk , and on the other hand the emerging post-punk generation is admonished to “forget imitation and it to create alone. "
composition
London Calling is composed in four-four time , its tonal center is E minor . The chords used are Em and G, the two slash chords F / E and Em / G and towards the end of the chorus D.
The song is characterized by the staccato-like chord strokes of the guitars on all four beats, which are described as lashing and aggressive. Rolling Stone magazine writes that these unison guitars, the throbbing bass and the drums cracking like gunshots sound like the band is marching into battle, and the atmosphere is “ hell-bound ”.
Allmusic calls the dynamic “hypnotizing.” The music renounces the usual scheme of verse and chorus in favor of a circling melody that allows concentration on the lyrics and supports the often repeated title phrase with a fascinating, descending bass motif . Despite this impression, the song is actually very conventionally divided into verse, chorus and interlude .
At the time of the creation of London Calling , rock music was opening up to new, alien themes and forms, which became visible in new genres such as New Wave and New Romantic . That the snare drum on the rock usual backbeat waived recall early Motown - and Stax - Soul . London Calling cleverly crosses hard rock with reggae.
Music video
The London Calling music video by Don Letts , a friend of the band, shows The Clash playing the song in the pouring rain on a barge in the Thames at night. The recordings were made in December 1979 at Cadogan Pier on Albert Bridge .
reception
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For The Clash, London Calling was a financial success. In Great Britain the single rose to number 11 on the charts and only the single Should I Stay Or Should I Go , which was released three years later, achieved higher sales. The song was favorably reviewed by the press and is now considered a milestone in rock music. It is number 15 of the 500 greatest songs of all time of Rolling Stone , and is, according to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame one of the 500 songs that rock and roll formed. Allmusic calls London Calling a powerful manifesto for post-punk rock and roll.
Despite the gloomy content, the song is often reduced to its title as a symbol of the city of London and used in various media offers, for example at the 2012 Olympic Games . The song has also been used in the soundtrack of various film and television productions, including an episode of Friends , in Billy Elliot - I Will Dance , James Bond 007 - Die Another Day and Intimacy .
London Calling has been covered several times, including by Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen .
Web links
- London Calling on The Clash website
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Christofer Jost: London Calling . In: Song dictionary of the University of Freiburg . Retrieved April 11, 2016.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h 500 Greatest Songs of All Time by Rolling Stone . Retrieved April 11, 2016.
- ↑ a b c d e London Calling . songfacts.com; Retrieved April 11, 2016.
- ^ The Sound of Strummer . BBC World Service ; Retrieved April 11, 2016.
- ^ London Calling on the band's website. Retrieved April 11, 2016.
- ^ A b c d Donald A. Guarisco: Song Review . Allmusic .com; Retrieved April 11, 2016.
- ^ Clash: Full Official Chart History. Official Charts Company; Retrieved April 11, 2016.
- ↑ 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll ( Memento from February 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame .
- ^ 'London Calling', Repurposed As A Tourism Jingle . National Public Radio ; Retrieved April 11, 2016.